Employee Survey Tool
An employee survey tool is a platform that helps companies gather feedback from their workforce to assess satisfaction, engagement, and overall well-being. From employee engagement survey tools to employee pulse survey tools, these platforms have become essential for HR teams looking to understand what drives employees and what needs improvement. This glossary answers the most common questions to help you evaluate and use the right survey tools.
What is an employee survey tool?
An employee survey tool is software that enables organizations to collect, analyse, and act on feedback from their employees. These tools support various survey types such as engagement, satisfaction, and well-being. With the rise of remote and hybrid work, online employee survey tools have become the standard for real-time feedback collection. Some tools also provide analytics, benchmarking, and automation features.
These tools may include features for anonymity, question logic, and integrations with HR systems. Anonymous employee survey tools are especially useful when companies want honest responses without fear of identification. Most modern solutions now also offer employee engagement pulse survey tools to track sentiment on an ongoing basis.
Why should companies use employee survey tools?
Employee survey tools offer data-driven insights that help improve engagement, productivity, and retention. They bridge the gap between leadership and staff by providing a structured way to listen.
- Identify issues before they escalate
- Increase employee engagement and morale
- Improve leadership accountability and team alignment
- Strengthen company culture with real feedback
- Track progress through ongoing pulse surveys
- Collect honest opinions via anonymous submissions
- Understand sentiment during change or restructuring
When should an employee survey tool be used?
These tools are helpful throughout the employee lifecycle—from onboarding to exit—and during key business events.
- During annual engagement reviews
- After major company changes or policy updates
- During leadership transitions or restructuring
- Post-project or post-training evaluations
- Regularly through employee pulse survey tools
Who benefits from using employee survey tools?
While designed for HR, these tools benefit leaders, teams, and employees alike by improving transparency and communication.
- HR teams gain insights for data-driven planning
- Managers understand team morale and challenges
- Employees feel heard and valued
- Executives track trends across departments
Where are employee survey tools typically used?
Most companies use online employee survey tools as part of their HR tech stack. These tools are accessed across devices and work well in both office and remote settings.
- HR dashboards and engagement platforms
- Mobile or web-based employee portals
- Slack or MS Teams integrations for real-time surveys
- Internal intranet systems with embedded survey tools
How do employee survey tools work?
These tools follow a structured process from survey creation to analytics, with user-friendly features for setup, distribution, and reporting.
- HR or admins create custom or templated surveys
- Surveys are distributed via email, SMS, or apps
- Employees submit responses, often anonymously
- Responses are auto-analyzed into dashboards
- Trends are tracked with heatmaps and scores
- Reports are shared with leadership or teams
- Follow-up actions are triggered based on results
Employee pulse surveys:
These are short surveys that can be sent frequently to check what your employees think about an issue quickly. The survey comprises fewer questions (not more than 10) to get the information quickly. These can be administered at regular intervals (monthly/weekly/quarterly).
One-on-one meetings:
Having periodic, hour-long meetings for an informal chat with every team member is an excellent way to get a true sense of what’s happening with them. Since it is a safe and private conversation, it helps you get better details about an issue.
eNPS:
eNPS (employee Net Promoter score) is one of the simplest yet effective ways to assess your employee's opinion of your company. It includes one intriguing question that gauges loyalty. An example of eNPS questions include: How likely are you to recommend our company to others? Employees respond to the eNPS survey on a scale of 1-10, where 10 denotes they are ‘highly likely’ to recommend the company and 1 signifies they are ‘highly unlikely’ to recommend it.
Based on the responses, employees can be placed in three different categories:
- Promoters
Employees who have responded positively or agreed. - Detractors
Employees who have reacted negatively or disagreed. - Passives
Employees who have stayed neutral with their responses.
What are the different types of employee survey tools?
There are several types of survey tools depending on what you want to measure. Each serves a unique purpose and helps track specific areas of employee experience.
- Employee engagement survey tools: Evaluate motivation, alignment, and commitment levels
- Employee satisfaction survey tools: Measure job satisfaction, workplace relationships, and role clarity
- Employee pulse survey tools: Short, frequent surveys to track employee sentiment in real time
- Employee wellbeing survey tools: Focus on physical, mental, and emotional health
- Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) tools: Ask if employees would recommend the workplace
- Employee feedback and development tools: Used for 360-degree feedback or post-training input
- Anonymous employee survey tools: Protect employee identity for candid responses
- Free employee survey tools: Basic tools for small teams with limited budgets
Which are the best employee survey tools?
The best tools offer user-friendly features, powerful analytics, and support multiple survey types. Top choices often provide integrations with HR systems and anonymized data collection.
- Empuls
- Qualtrics EmployeeXM
- Culture Amp
- Officevibe
- SurveyMonkey (for custom surveys)
- Lattice or 15Five (for engagement and performance)
- TINYpulse and Weekdone (for employee engagement pulse surveys)
- Zoho Survey and Google Forms (as best free employee survey tools)
Which employee survey tools offer engagement, pulse, and wellbeing features in one platform?
Some modern platforms combine employee engagement surveys, pulse check-ins, and wellbeing assessments in a single solution. These all-in-one tools simplify the feedback process and give HR teams a 360° view of the employee experience.
- Empuls: Offers engagement surveys, pulse checks, eNPS, and wellbeing surveys with built-in analytics and action planning tools
- Culture Amp: Known for customizable templates and benchmarking
- Officevibe: Focuses on weekly pulse surveys and team insights
- Lattice: Combines surveys with performance management tools
- TINYpulse: Provides quick feedback loops and recognition features
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